View from the Big Hills

“If magic isn’t for the common weal, what good is it?” - Alan Richardson, The Logos of the Aeon and the Shakti of the Age Service is a fascinating term which is often overused and misunderstood within the Western Esoteric Tradition. Gareth Knight explored the subject in his blog a year or so ago with a post entitled, In Order To Serve:- http://garethknight.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/in-order-to-serve.html Having pondered what he wrote, I thought I’d pull together some additional thoughts and provocations on the concept. Interestingly, if my memory of school Latin is correct, I don’t think the Romans ever had a word that quite captured our modern concept of service, at least not one that really captured it adequately. From what I can see, the Latin “servus” (which our modern day “service” comes from) meant “slave” – and just that. For the Romans there appeared to be an absence of the concept whereby service could mean a voluntary offering by free will of one’s

Somewhat strangely, keeping a magical diary can be both a chore and a treasure. At other times it can be a godsend or even an old wise friend. The Western Esoteric Tradition teaches that the practice of recording and reviewing one’s magical diary is a critical part of the initiate’s deal. Primarily, it is an opportunity to capture, make sense of and ground the experiences and insights gained from ceremonial and meditative practice. Secondly, it provides a personal travel log from which progress can be measured and carefully assessed; the impact of natural, lunar, solar and stellar cycles can be gleaned. Finally, the Magical Diary can provide an occasionally needed safety valve for when people lose their way a bit or things overheat – a kind of Ariadne’s thread for Theseus to safely retrace his steps through the angled labyrinth of the mind. There are lots of examples from famous initiate’s magical diaries – Aleister Crowley, Dion Fortune, Charles Seymour, Christi